Many procedures have been suggested for illuminating difficult to traverse areas, such as stairways, hallways and closets, from simple light bulbs mounted in ceiling fixtures to complicated structures for illuminating stair edges, treads or risers, the latter often being employed in theaters. (See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,685,332, 6,606,827 and 6,145,996). Suggested operating mechanisms for these lighting arrays run the gamut from wall-mounted, user-activated switches to various forms of motion detectors that automatically activate the light sources.
While these previous devices have all provided some benefit, they suffer from complicated installation, high cost and difficult maintenance. Further, many employ normal household current and thus may not be available in true emergencies, such as a power failure at night, when illumination would be truly needed.